About Me

My photo
No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Friday, September 16, 2011

K is for Kit Sprues - as a Marketing Tool!

For the longest time now Paul Morehead over at Plastic Warrior has run the feature 'Soldiers in the Media' finding the uses people put toy soldiers to in order to sell you something else. I too have always collected toy-related stuff in the more general media and here are a few on a single theme...Kit Sprues.

This was a 'Quick-fit' insurance leaflet from about two years ago, and pulls heavily on Airfix iconography for everything from the logo to the paint tins!

This is a bit older (10 years or so?) and is full of fascinating stuff worth reading (it should be an o-level text!) as well as having recognise able bits of an Italeri or Tamiya (?) sprue...I recognise the guard dog and the officer's map-case!! But I don't know what the sow-weaster hood looking thing is middle left?

This is more recent, and a very good bit of Sci-fi 'near-fiction'. topical as well; Radio 4 have had two programmes devoted to 3-D printing in the last few weeks, one of the biggest tech-con's is currently featuring 'Rapid Prototyping' as the trend du jour, and we (toy soldier people) had two or three very interesting debates about the subject only a couple of three-years ago.

Held on the HaT and Strelets forums if you fancy looking for them, the general consensus was we'd all be able to design our own set in Dreamweaver and take the disc down to Prontoprint for a new set of killer-caveman space-marines before tea, within a year or two! that's er...now!

However a quick read of Makers leads you to spot potential problems even the author hasn't covered, such as a rougue robot-copier vindictively covering the planet in a grey plastic layer of Airfix Drum-major's because the toaster rejected him with a stolid silence!!!!! Be afraid, be very afraid...

2 comments:

Scott B. Lesch said...

I knew Dawkins is COOL! Heck... he's married to one of Doctor's Who's companions.

Maverick Collecting said...

Hi Scott, sorry I missed your comment!

I can think of several Dr. Who assistants I'd marry...er...most of them! Well; the ones with lumpy-jumpers, Rory does nothing for me!!!